Thursday, January 8, 2015

Scholastic :: Kids & Family Reading Report 5th Ed.

The New Kids & Family Reading Report™ from Scholastic Explores the Reading Attitudes and Experiences That Most Influence Children’s Reading Habits, Including Reading Aloud at Home, Independent Reading at School, Presence of Books in the Home, and More.

In fall 2014, Scholastic,
in conjunction with YouGov, conducted a survey to explore family attitudes and
behaviors around reading books for fun. The key findings of this research,
based on a nationally representative sample of 2,558 parents and children,
including 506 parents of children ages 0–5; 1,026 parents of children ages
6–17; plus one child age 6–17 from the same household, are as follows:

The State of Kids &
Reading

~Half of all children
ages 6–17 (51%) are currently reading a book for fun and another one in five
(20%) just finished one.

~Both parents of
children ages 6–17 (71%) and kids (54%) rank strong reading skills as the most
important skill a child should have. Yet while 86% of parents say reading books
for fun is extremely or very important, only 46% of kids say the same.

Reading Aloud at Home

~When it comes to being read aloud to at home, more
than eight in 10 children (83%) across age groups say they love(d) or like(d)
it a lot—the main reason being it was a special time with parents.

Spotlight: Reading with Kids from Birth

~Nearly three-quarters of parents with children ages 0–5
(73%) say they started reading aloud to their child before age one, yet only
30% say they began before the age of three months.Reading in School

~One third of children ages 6–17 (33%) say their
class has a designated time during the school day to read a book of choice
independently, but only 17% do this every or almost every school day.

What Kids Want in Books

~Ninety-one percent of children ages 6–17 say “my
favorite books are the ones that I have picked out myself.”

~The majority of kids ages 6–17 (70%) say they want
books that “make me laugh.” Kids also want books that “let me use my
imagination” (54%), “tell a made-up story” (48%), “have characters I wish I
could be like because they’re smart, strong or brave” (43%), “teach me
something new” (43%) and “have a mystery or a problem to solve” (41%).READ MORE!